Diamond Digging

OK, so the idea of diamond digging is WAY more fun than actually diamond digging.  It was chilly, there was a misty rain, and we were surrounded by hills of dirt that were turning quickly to mud.  The girls dug for a little while, but then got bored.  I walked with them and looked at the museum and gift shop, but that didn't hold them over either.  Finally, I had to drag Bob away without a "find".  We were lucky though that the was a nightly gem hunt set up for kids at Diamond John's.  The girls had fun looking for gems with flashlights and figuring out what they were the next day with a little book they gave us.  We now have gems, mission accomplished :)!

NO BEER- WHAT?!?!!!

This was the last day in Texas and we headed for the border, the Arkansas border, for the second leg of our family vacation to stay in a tee pee at Diamond John's riverside retreat.  It was glorified camping, but at least there was a bed and it had a heater and ac if needed!  Day one we got in around dinner so we fed the peacocks, went out to eat then stopped by Walmart.  That is when we made a HORRID DISCOVERY!  WE WERE IN A DRY COUNTY!  What the hell, we were NOT staying in a tee pee for 4 days without alcohol!  More about that in our next post!!!  On a  happy note- we found the biggest marshmallows for roasting :)!

Best BBQ EVER!

After the museum we went to Ikea to take a couple of the previous day's impulse buys back.  the girls were a little excited for Ikea:

After a short Ikea trip we went to the third of the Man vs Food restaurants, Salt Lick,  for some Texas BBQ that was cooked in an open flame with an INDOOR  fire pit.  It is quite possibly the most mouth watering meat I have ever had in.my.life!  Holy cow was if good!  Oh and the girls got to touch a real cactus!

Austin Children's Museum

We had planned on going to the Austin Children's Museum yesterday, but it did not work into the schedule.  Today Lydia was a whole new person after 24 hours of antibiotics!  We hit the road solo today and gave Aimee a day to catch up on school work.  The museum was FANTASTIC!  They had enough to keep us busy most of the day.  The best part of the museum was the special exhibit called En mi Familia (In my Family) which was based from the artwork and life of Carmen Lomas Garza.

Hines vs Food

Since, Ben and Aimee are so close to Austin we thought we would try to hit a few of the restaurants on the tv show Man vs Food-Austin.  We started the day with Round Rock Donuts.  They have a donut that they use a bucket to cut out.  It melted in your mouth.  After Round Rock, we went to Ikea... enough said :).  Bob took Lydia to urgent care and she has the start of strep throat :(.  We ended the afternoon with Juan in a Million for some AMAZING, Authentic Mexican food.

A day of Rest

Today Lydia was still looking pretty pitiful so we thought we would give her a day of rest and see if that helped.  We sat around the house, watched tv, read books, and had a generally lazy day.  It was great.  In the afternoon, when Ben got off we went to see a movie at the planetarium in Killeen.  We had the theater to ourselves and it was a neat show.  Afterwords we saw and touched a rock form the moon and saw some other neat hands on exhibits.  Once again, Lydia's fever came back though and we headed home for pizza.  After the kiddos were in bed I got to see Julie and Julia.  It was a GREAT MOVIE.  Tomorrow Lydia needs to go to urgent care :(.